2. Characters and Roleplay

2.1.1. What should I read first?

There is a lot of information on the website, and much of it is reference material that does not have to be read right away. However, there are some files that most likely will be needed in order to successfully select and request a character, get through CharGen and start roleplaying.

THEME - This section of the Helpfiles gives a brief, concise look at the theme of the game. This is particularly important reading if you have not read any of the books.

INFO CHARACTER GUIDE - This Helpfile explains in detail the process of selecting, requesting and setting up a character.

Blood of Dragons does not have open character creation. Players select from a database of over 2000+ characters arranged into family trees for various noble houses and because of this the process for getting a character is a little different than on other games. The option to have an original character created does exist, but requires speaking to the Admin.

When you first connect to the game, you can login to a guest account (type connect Guest Guest) or you can create a visitor account (type create <name> <password> to create the account and type connect <name> <password> to connect to it). If you choose to create a visitor account, please note that it is not a playable character account until you have selected and requested a character from the database.

For information about how to select and request a character, see +HELP CDB NEWBIE and +HELP CDB REQUEST.Once you have made a request, the Admin will email you further instructions as soon as they can. If there were no problems with your choice of character, the email will either give you your login information right off or direct you to the appropriate application form.

Note that while all characters except Cameos (pre-made characters for testing out the game with) require an emailed application, it is very brief for Open characters. Even for Restricted and Limited characters the Admin are not in any way expecting massive applications.

All of the characters in the CDB have a certain set of details pre-determined. This always includes name and age. Most characters also have their closest family members and marital status pre-determined. It is also quite common for characters to have a position set. These are the basic details that we add in whenever we add a character to the CDB. You will be able to see all of these details by viewing the character’s family tree and by typing +cdb <name> on the game.

In addition to these basics, characters who have relations in play may have a few relations set (you can check this using +cdb/rlist <name>). Occasionally we also end up setting some notes (+cdb/nlist <name>) and events +cdb/elist <name>) on a character based on what has been going on with related characters.

However, unless a character is listed as CGed when you check them with +cdb <name>, the character has not been fully pre-generated. If a character is listed as CGed, on the other hand, it means that it has been taken through CharGen and fully setup with all the CharGen attributes as well as a complete background.

As a new player, you may want to know what characters are already being played. Perhaps you want to see what Houses are represented by PCs at court or perhaps you are thinking of requesting a particular character but want to know if any relatives of the character are in play.

If you look up a character using +cdb NAME, a played character will be listed as a PC at the top of the output. To list all of the current PCs, use +cdb/search state/pc. You can also list PCs by open areas, +cdb/search state/pc|location/king’s landing for King’s Landing and +cdb/search state/pc|location/Dorne for Dorne. If you want to list the PCs from a specific House, for example House Lannister, use +cdb/search state/pc|house/Lannister.

This is particularly relevant if the character you are looking at has a closely connected character in play (a spouse, a betrothed or a lover), since we ask that you speak to the player of said character before you are approved (ideally at the application stage) since they have some say in who plays a character closely connected to their own. It is, for example, important that your ideas for the characters are compatible and that your schedules allow you to play with each other.

To get in touch with another player, you can either use the board by posting a topic or sending a PM or you can ask the Admin to pass a message and/or your email address onto the player in question.

The focus of Blood of Dragons MUSH is largely determined by the physical locations available for play and the range of characters available for play.

Both of the permanently open areas—King’s Landing and Sunspear—are centered around courts. The court of the Targaryen kings in King’s Landing and the court of the Martell princes in Sunspear. At the moment, both courts are lead by relatively weak and not terribly popular leaders. King Baelor is known for his extreme piety and many are concerned about how he will lead the realm. Prince Marence, due to his actions during the Dornish Conquest, is seen as weak, indecisive leader.

The available characters are members of those noble houses that we have made family trees for. This means that most characters are noble, ranging from the most minor nobles to the greatest nobles of the realm. There is also some room for characters attached to noble households in various capacities, but virtually all players currently on the game are playing some kind of noble.

Because of the size of MUSHes in this day and age we have decided against trying to portray all aspects and all strata of Westerosi society. Instead, virtually all roleplay centers on the social and political interactions at either court. The city of King’s Landing and the shadow city in Sunspear exist as backdrops for roleplay and we also build additional areas for plots, but by and large characters interact primarily with other nobles.

The day-to-day roleplay is centered around the social and political interactions at the two courts. We feel that there is a lot of potential in this type of roleplay but that it does depend on what you as a player try to do with it. Some people gravitate towards just the social aspects but we are very happy to help and support those who desire more political roleplay as well.

We try to run various events with some regularity; court sessions, feasts, tourneys and hunts are among the more common types, but we also try to have a few larger-scale plots each year, usually involving trips to some other (but not too distant) part of the Seven Kingdoms. When we can work it in, we definitely try to provide opportunities for our knights to test their skills outside of just tourneys, but we are by no means a combat-heavy game.

In most cases, you should select a character from our pre-created family trees. Players can also request entirely original characters, but in general this will be allowed only for more experienced players and even then fairly rarely. It should be considered as an option only if the concept you have in mind really doesn’t fit any of the existing characters.

The characters in the family trees cover are predominantly noble characters, ranging from the most minor to the most major of nobles. The family trees also include non-noble household members. We feel that nobles or household members in noble houses are the most suitable characters considering our focus on court life and court politics, which means that there are few roleplay opportunities for commoners or merchants that aren’t closely tied to any noble house. We may make additional provisions for non-noble characters at a later time, but nothing has been decided regarding this.

Please note that with a few notable exceptions almost no characters in the family tree hold positions of importance at court. This does not mean that players cannot play characters that hold offices from the start of play. Except in the case of some major offices that had to be filled from the start, the Admin have avoided predetermining whether someone holds and office or not. If a player wishes to play a character who holds a court office they can request any character that has not been played before and that could feasibly hold a political office and then propose what it is they want to do with the character during the application stage. The Admin are always happy to work with players to find a suitable position at court for their characters.

Blood of Dragons is designed to be a game that is not too dependent on specific roles to be in play for roleplay to flow smoothly. Since all characters of importance already exist in the CDB, if a specific character who is needed for a plot is unplayed, the Admin can allow the character to be played temporarily or they can simply decide how the character reacts.

That said, as the focus on the game is on court life and court politics, the Admin are particularly interested in concepts for politically involved characters. Players who want to play characters that hold offices at court are not restricted to finding characters already placed in such positions, they can simply request any character who could feasibly hold an office and propose what office they would like to hold during the application stage. The Admin are always happy to work with players to find a suitable position at court for their characters.

Beyond this, the Admin would like to encourage players who find themselves asking what is needed to consider what sort of character they would most enjoy playing. It is our experience that the more a player enjoys a character, the more useful for the game that character is. If you still find yourself at a loss and would like some sort of suggestion, there are two things you can do.

First, take a look at +cdb/wanted. This is a list of the top 10 most wanted NPCs on the game, as voted on by the players. Secondly, if none of the entries on the list appeal to you, you can also have a look at the forums. There are stickied threads there dedicated to players advertising for specific roles that they would like to see filled and it is also where the Admin sometimes advertise for specific roles or concepts when we do feel a need to do such.

The most important thing to consider when selecting a character and coming up with a concept is quite simply the question of “will I have fun with this character on this game?”.

Its no fun to find that your character does not have much in common with the other characters (unless, of course, you enjoy that particular challenge!) or that the kind of roleplay you designed this character for isn’t happening on the game. Given this, we strongly urge potential players to consider the fact that the game is focused on the social and political interactions at the two courts. All characters need not be political creatures, but they need to have some role to play at court, whether that is seeking influence or renown for themselves or their families or just passing time and spending money.

For male characters there’s room for all sorts of knights, shining or otherwise, as well as for nobles lacking in martial ability and seeking other ways to advance themselves. Their available options are more or less the same in both King’s Landing and Sunspear, though we do want to stress that we know much less about what happens in Dorne during this time period, so if you find the notion of us following known canon history too limiting, then consider a Dornish character if you have read the books that feature those.

For female characters, we are particularly keen to see characters who are eager to take on the challenge of working within the system. Women have more limited opportunities than men in King’s Landing, but we would love to see more female characters take on the challenge of rising in the social circles of the court and being a power behind the men in their lives. Perhaps your father, brother or husband is not showing a lot of political initiative, leaving the task of increasing the house’s influence to you? In Sunspear, women have every opportunity to be forces that are reckoned with at court, even if they are still largely absent from the more martial aspects of life.

The most important criteria is that characters have to be able to be based in either King’s Landing or Sunspear for the long term. Furthermore, characters have to be able to fit into either court.

This means that virtually all characters need to be nobles. Smallfolk and merchants are only possible if they have a position or occupation that allows them to be at court and interacting with the nobles. Bear in mind that the Seven Kingdoms is a highly stratified society. Maesters, septons and septas are possible but generally discouraged unless you are a very experienced MUSHer who is able to handle finding roleplay in such a role.

For King’s Landing, characters should generally be from one of the Seven Kingdoms except the North, the Iron Islands and Dorne. Characters from the North are approved occasionally and characters from the Iron Islands are approved quite rarely. For Dorne characters should be from Dorne.

Foreign characters are generally not available as PCs. Experienced MUSHers who have read all the books may occasionally be approved to play a foreign character, but generally only after playing on the game with a Westerosi character first and generally only for time-limited plots.

Female warriors and any kind of magic users are highly restricted concepts, only occasionally available to experienced MUSHers with good knowledge of the setting who have been playing on the game for a while.